Scottish Independence and Shared Heritages

Freddy Gray has written a thoughtful review of the Scottish independence debate. He concludes:

Yet proper conservatives cannot wish to see 300 years of heritage thrown away, and Cameron wants to avoid going down in the history books as the prime minister on whose watch the union came to an end. Most of the English people, no matter what their political views, retain an affection for the Scottish—even if, across the border, the sentiment is not returned. Many of us (me, for instance) have Scottish ancestry. We may not be entirely comfortable with our shared and mixed identities, but that doesn’t mean we’d have it any other way. Not everything is politics, even for politicians.

I take his point, but I think this is where the unionist case is much weaker than its supporters realize. Even in much more contentious and violent political separations than this one, the shared cultural heritage between two peoples usually isn’t and can’t be “thrown away.” Despite changes in governments and borders, cultural ties persist and can even thrive across official boundaries, and the boundaries between an independent Scotland and the rest of the U.K. would almost certainly be more porous than most. America’s separation from Britain certainly represented a very sharp and permanent break with the government in London, but it didn’t mark the end of commerce with Britain or a breakdown of social and cultural relations. The other parts of the U.K. may not want Scotland to separate from the union, but Scotland won’t and in many respects can’t give up the economic and cultural ties that still exist. Gray notes that there is no love lost for the English in Scotland, but it is conceivable that this attitude could gradually change for the better when London has no authority over Scotland. I suspect that both nationalists and unionists need to overstate the significance of independence for their own reasons, but if it does happen it would probably not be nearly as dramatic a change as they hope or fear it will be.

That the Scots should nurse historical grievances against the Sassenach is entirely unremarkable. Of course, if every nation nursed its grudges from throughout history, the world would be an even more bitter place than it is now.

I’m always amused at the seriousness with which American conservatives take this debate. One would think that of all things worth conserving in the Anglosphere the Union would be near the top of the list. The so-called “cultural ties” we are talking about here are a set of banal anachronisms about kilts and so on (see Hugh Trevor-Roper’s brilliant essay “The Invention of Scotland”). The average supporter of “independence” in Scotland is either a tattooed lout who has seen Braveheart too many times (the Scotch equivalent of a Theodore Dalrymple patient); or a cynical Eurocrat. The whole thing is risible. The only serious argument in favor of independence is that made by, for example, Simon Heffer on the English side, which has to do with saving money. But even that is a strictly libertarian concern. To a High Tory, there are more important things than balance sheets.

“The so-called ‘cultural ties’ we are talking about here are a set of banal anachronisms about kilts and so on (see Hugh Trevor-Roper’s brilliant essay ‘The Invention of Scotland’).

I always wonder why folks think that evidence that such and such nationality was “invented” is dispositive of anything. All nationalities were invented, in one way or another, or in a combination of ways. Borders, both in terms of people and land, are always arbitrary, in the end. And, of course, it is or was in the interests of some statesmen, and some other folks, and some States, to promote nationalistic feelings.

We are all homo sapiens. Nationality, like any other seriated group identity, is an invention, whether conscious or not. It is culturally, not biologically, determined.

And its foundation in myth, which, I take it, is Trevor-Roper’s big apercu/revelation in the case of Scotland, is pretty universal. What was the Romulus story if not a myth? How about Parson Weems and George Washington, to take a more modern example. Generations of French school children have been brought up on the more or less mythical notion that their “ancestors” (literally and culturally) were the Gauls of ancient times. Even English nationalism, said by T-R to be less mythical, has its King Arthur, and its Queen Boudica. Arthur has been played up as some sort of founding figure of “England” even though he (or, more accurately, the human precursor to the legendary figure) was either a Celt or even a Romanized Briton who actually fought against the Anglo Saxons, ie the “English!” Much the same with Boudica, who was celebrated by English nationalists in the early modern period and even the Age of Victoria even though she too was not an Anglo Saxon at all, but a Celt.

According to the historian Eugen Weber, in his monumental “Peasants into Frenchmen,” even the French, often seen as one of older and more “natural” nations and nationalisms, did not conceive of themselves as such, for the most part, into well into the Nineteenth Century. Prior to that, provinces and smaller units, right on down to the village level, were the object of loyalties, not “France.”

And in Weber’s debt is Keely Stauter-Halsted, whose “The Nation in the Village” makes more or less the same claims about Poles in the Austrian empire up to 1914. The thesis here is that most folks, ie the non nobility, had little or no notion of themselves as “Poles” at all, even though they spoke Polish and lived in lands formerly part of the independent Polish kingdom. Their “Polishness” was invented, or reinvented, if you like, by literate city dwellers who did so quite consciously and openly and for political purposes.

And much the same could be said about all or most of the Nineteenth Century/early Twentieth Century rising nationalisms, national unification movements, and so on from the Risorgimento in Italy to the various German unification movements (right on down to Hitler and even 1989), to the hodge podge of nationalities in the former Austrian empire and the Balkans and so on. Even Third World anti colonialism has taken on much of the same baggage, with Nigerian or Ghanian or Indian or Pakistani “national” identity being made up out of whole cloth. Same with Zionism and the Jews, and, ironically, with the “Palestinian” nationality as well.

The “nation” is what people want it to be.

Anyway, if Scottish nationalism is fake, what makes “British” nationalism any less so? The “Union” has only been in effect de facto for four hundred years and de jure for three hundred, and has not been uncontested even during all of that time. Clearly, despite what Trevor-Roper claims, there were people living in Scotland long before 1707 or 1603, and their cultural roots were not the same as the dominant group in England. There was such a thing as “Scotland” that really existed, even if the current version of it is an ahistorical or unhistorical pastiche of nostalgia, kitsch, “Braveheart” inspired popular culture, parochialism and so on. And if that is what the majority of folks living in Scotland want to emphasize, rather than their alleged “Britishness,” why is it my business, or anyone else’s, to tell them that they are wrong?

All very interesting, but it is actually even less relevant to the question of Scottish political independence or, more basically, the notion of a separate Scottish “identity” or “nation,” than I had imagined. So what if certain Highland “traditions,” most prominently, the kilt, are post Union innovations?

First off, it is not as if the Scottish identity being proclaimed today is strictly a “Highlander” one. By definition, the Highlanders could not possibly represent the whole of Scotland, even if one throws in the Western Islanders too. Indeed, even if in the much despised “Braveheart,” it is made clear that most Scots, including the lords and nobles, are NOT Highlanders.

Then, the notion of the Highlanders as a people entirely separate, throughout history, from the other Celts of northern Britain and Ireland, is hardly the point, either. Everyone already knew that Celtic society, including migrations in both directions across the Irish Sea, was quite fluid, and that no notion of a distinctly “Scottish” nationality, much less a “Highlander” one, existed in the ancient world.

Much the same with the fake literary and historical traditions. Scottish identity, and nationhood, in the real world, came into being in the Middle Ages, not before. Yes, it is true that prior to that, what is now Scotland was most likely originally tribal Pict country, then was overrun by Celts (or Gaels) from Ireland, after which the Romans, the Anglo Saxons, the Danes, the Normans and so on, all had their way in certain parts of Scotland at certain times. And that early Scottish patriots tried to blot all of that out and fake a political and literary tradition. But a Scottish kingdom did eventually arise.

Indeed, again, the dreaded “Braveheart” makes it clear that Scottish independence, rather than being some eternal verity, was fought for, was being contested, in the Middle Ages, against the English kings. But that Scotland did eventually establish its independence, and, under the Stewarts, flourished, from the late 1300’s to the unification of the kings (but not yet the thrones), in 1603. And that actual, historical Scotland, the real, independent kingdom that existed in the real world, NOT the romantic conception of the Highlanders, the fake poems, the notion of dozens of “Scottish” kings in BCE times, etc, is what is being harkened back to now by Scottish nationalists.

And, really, what is presented here by Trevor-Roper is no different than what could be said about Italy, Germany, etc. Again, a nation is what is chooses to be, and part of that choice is a very, very loose approach to the past. The national food of Italy, pasta, derives from Chinese noodles. The tomato is a new world plant, not native to Italy. Metternich was not entirely wrong when he called Italy merely a “geographic” term. And, today, there are many, particularly in the North, who would like to undo the work of Garibaldi and Cavour. “Italy,” per se, had never been a nation, prior to the Nineteenth Century. Not in the ancient world, and not in the medieval or early modern periods either. But does that mean that Italian nationalism is somehow not real? It is “invented,” yes, but it still exist.

With any nationality or alleged nationality, one can always find, if one looks, instances where the supposed nation was once divided into smaller units that were the locus of loyalty, that, at its margins, at least, the alleged nationality blends imperceptibly and indistinctly into other nationalities, that there are always broad, regional differences that could, just as readily, be said to be the basis of separate, national differences, that instances of early modern, medieval, ancient or pre historical proto nationhood and culture are or were mostly faked by folks with an agenda, political or otherwise. And so on.

Why should it be any different for the Scottish? Really, all of the sub units of the British Isles, England, Scotland, but also Wales, Ireland, and the lesser islands, have complex, interactive histories that defy easy notions of separate “nations” and “identities.” All have been shaped by migrations and conquests and vast intermingling of peoples and cultures and languages. None of them existed as isolated, identifiable “nations” in the ancient world (when such things were thin on the ground everywhere). All of them were subject to periods of political splintering and conglomeration. All of them were, at one time or another, part of medieval, dynastical States that did not even purport to have nationalism, which is, for the most part, a modern concept, as their foundation. As I mentioned, even England, as big and powerful and over weaning as it has been in the British Isles, has found the need to weave a legendary king and a real queen, neither of whom had anything to do with “England” (except maybe fight it, in Arthur’s case!), into its fake, “invented” past.

The Scottish “identity” being proposed by the SNP is a purely civic one. An independent Scotland, should it come to pass, is not for “the Scots” in any meaningful sense. It is for social democracy. The SNP proposal is to keep the Queen, to keep the BBC in all but name, and to keep drinking tea.

The one thing for certain that independence will secure for Scotland is that the country will never again be under a Tory government. That’s the crux of the matter.

Even if independence fails, all “Scots” (i.e. residents of Scotland) regardless of party will get behind “devo max”, i.e. total fiscal devolution. The only think Scotland will share with England after that will be a currency and a foreign policy.

Not sure what your point is. Who cares what James wanted in 1600? Why should his desires continue to rule, or matter at all?

Nor do I see why it matters that Scots played a large part in administering a British Empire that pretty much no longer exists. Nor that several British PMs have been Scots.

As for his or isn’t a Scot, why is that an insurmountable, or even novel problem? Was a Czech who moved from Prague to Bratislava a few years before the breakup still a Czech, or a Slovak, when the break up came? Presumably, some eminently fair rules can be implemented to allow people to choose their nationality over a generous transition period.

I find it odd that folks with little or no stake in the game worry so much about the whys and why nots, and the details, of Scottish secession.

If the Scots want their own nation, as an American, I fail to see why I should care one way or another. And they can stay under the English Queens or not, and keep the pound, and British FP, or not, and stay in NATO and the EU, or one and not the other, or neither, and I still fail to see why I should care. Same with the rules about determining who is or isn’t a Scot.

Not only is it NOT my affair, but there isn’t even any sort of “meta” case here, however implausible, about “freedom” and the like. A peaceful, non violent, democratic secessionist movement might or might not succeed. Either way, the security and economic stability of the USA is not threatened.

My point is that Scottish independence is being pushed cynically by a gang of hucksters who want to live off the fat of the EU; in pursuit of their goal, they have inflamed a largely uneducated public with the sort of rubbish that Trevor-Roper was writing about. The Scots “want” their own nation in the same sense that a few hicks in Texas with Confederate flags on their pickups might “want” to secede from the Union. The difference is that not even Rick Perry has ever thought seriously to campaign around the idea.

First of all, I was asking James Canning, not you, what his point was.

Secondly, again, I really don’t care whether the Scots have a good case or not for wanting their own country. It is simply none of my business, as an American citizen, whether they secede or not, nor, if they do, whether that is wise or not.

Next, on the Trevor-Roper stuff, I have already extensively commented on it, and feel no need to repeat those comments. If you care to dispute any or all of my claims in that regard, go ahead. But I am not going to respond substantively to your third, general, appeal to T-R’s dubious authority in this regard.

Finally, although, as I mentioned, I have no dog in this fight, I have not found anything in the cited T-R or Simon Schama articles that really presents a solid reason for a Scotsman to vote “No.” T-R is all about the kilts, the fake poems and the fake kings. All of which, while, yes, do debunk the “loutish”/Braveheart version of Scottish history, are not reasons to actually STAY in the Union. Schama is basically just an Englishman lamenting that he won’t have the Scots around to beef up his country’s status with their territory and population, and to keep things interesting with their “otherness.” All he can do, beyond that, is cite irrelevant historical experiences that no longer apply (the Empire, the Civil War, etc). And Mr Larison pretty much shoots down Freddy Gray.

Your professed desire to see the union maintained sits oddly with your statement that “the average supporter of “independence” in Scotland is either a tattooed lout who has seen Braveheart too many times (the Scotch equivalent of a Theodore Dalrymple patient); or a cynical Eurocrat.”

I’d put good money on your coming to this conclusion without actually spending any time in Scotland, or discussing the referendum with supporters (average or otherwise) of either independence or the union. Had you, it may have helped you avoid making such trite and lazy observations. (Recommending Simon Heffer (God help us all) on the Scottish referendum is a reasonably certain means of demonstrating that you don’t know what you’re talking about).

The cultural ties referred to in both the original and quoted articles are, of course, those between Scotland and England. I imagine the need to demonstrate your little learning (so lightly worn), obliged you to drag in poor Hugh Trevor-Roper and his decades-old obsession with C19th tartanry. His assertion that these historical phenomena – commonplace products of European romanticism and nationalism in the 1800s – make Scottish national “identity” any more “invented” than the Czech, Polish or even English varieties has long been regarded as baseless and silly, as other commenters have noted.